Feel Free to Point a Finger

Here’s my definition of a grown-up: a person who is in charge of his own life and doesn’t blame his parents, his boss, or society for every little thing. A grown-up also makes a difference in the world and can cook a turkey dinner for eight without setting the oven on fire or giving the guests salmonella poisoning. (For the scoop on why my sister is a grown-up and I am not, see “The Turkey Test” in my book “You May Already Be a Wiener!”)

Today, it’s okay to free your inner child. It’s Blame Someone Else Day. That’s right. Today, and today only, you can point the finger at someone else and charge them with making a mess of things, causing trouble, or generally ruining your life. However you come up short, today you have permission to abdicate all personal responsibility and accuse someone else.

This will be fun.

The fact that I was 55 before I figured out what I wanted to do when I grew up was clearly not my fault. The blame is shared by the following:

My parents, who were far too trusting when I told them that declaring a major wasn’t important.

The University of Arizona, which, although it offered career counseling, didn’t drag me into the office and make me listen.

Society, which in 1973 when I married Starter Husband, sanctioned “housewife” as a viable career choice. Somebody should have told me there was no room for advancement.

Among my other imperfections, I’m overweight. I admit it. But it’s not my fault. I mean, everywhere you turn there are restaurants with huge portions and comfy seats and good smells just waiting to ambush any plans to improve one’s diet. Part of the blame goes to my grandparents on my father’s side, the source of the genes that make my fat cells resistant to shrinkage. You can’t fight heredity.

Most of all, I blame the snack food industry, which cranks out salty crunchy tidbits that call to me from the pantry. I think the FDA should investigate them. Obviously, snacks have addictive properties which make resistance futile. And the pushers are everywhere-even hospitals have vending machines with Fritos, Doritos and Cheetos.

My carbon footprint could be mistaken for Bigfoot’s, but that’s not my fault either. Modern life demands that I have at least seven electronic devices that need to be re-charged nightly. When the chargers are not charging my iPod, my iPhone, or my iToothbrush, they are still drawing current, but whoever designed my house put the electrical outlets in an inconvenient place. I’d have to lean over to unplug everything.

Also, my car uses too much gas, but my neighbors are to blame for that. They all have big cars, and I couldn’t see over them to pull safely out of my driveway in my little Honda, forcing me to purchase a taller and less fuel-efficient car in order to drive through my neighborhood without being mowed down by a Mom in a minivan.

To sum up my shortcomings, I am not accomplished enough, thin enough, or green enough, but it is clearly not my fault. At least for today.